That Starmer fella...

Well. Apart from making BJ unhappy at PMQ, what's happened?

Starmer went shopping.

It's in the hands of the various investigations for now. Unless Starmer has some sort of evidence he's sitting on.

I probably misread, or misremembered, but the investigations can be overridden by PM right?

I swear we're due a fela kuti.

There's more than one investigation. Electoral Commission and a ministerial standards one. He has ultimate say on the latter, but there's pressure to change that. The more he pushes back against that, the more guilty he'll look.

Never underestimate people's will to be racist more than care about corruption.

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I don't think just racist covers this enough, there are all sorts of other levels of stupidity involved.

I think also there's a gap between someting happening and it affecting people's votes. I'm not even sure the Johnson stories will truly land, electorally speaking, before the elections. I still expect Labour to do better than they did in the last local elections though.

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Excellent interview with Starmzy on Radio Four Today this morning, at about 8am. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000vp2v

He's repeating that line about how austerity / going back to normal is both morally bankrupt AND economically stupid. I think it's really strong and I hope it gives him the ability to push back on all those 'Labour will bankrupt the economy' takes without discarding the strong ethical message.

Not looking good for the Labour is it, super depressing

Depends who you ask. I think we'll squeak Hartlepool, though it is on a knife edge, hold the London Mayoral elections, and do better in the local elections than we did in 2018. Coming back from the worst election result in a hundred years takes longer than a year, unfortunately, and the brand is still borderline toxic.

I think I saw that a poll showed the conservatives to be +17 in Hartlepool.

I know it is only a small sample but the Survation results from Hartlepool this morning are super depressing given the background of what has been going on in the news the last two weeks with Tory sleeze, seems people would just prefer to hold their nose and support the party that got brexit done

It’s quite something that the Tories have convinced the people of Hartlepool that change is needed, when they’ve been in government for the past 11 years.

Levelling up agenda seems to cut through despite there be no levelling up or real plan behind the slogan and decades of levelling down being inflicted by same people

The corruption exposé doesent/wont stick esp in these more cynical times. I am sure general public thinks that they are all corrupt.

Exposing is good but labour is failing to 'convert' using that.

Exposing is also reactionary rather than proactive; 'level up' from voters POV is something new and proactive rather than 'Westminster fighting. amongst themselves'.

Tbf Hartlepool probably would benefit from going Tory, it seems to be their plan that they better fund and target Tory seats for interventions and underfund Labour areas and as a seat they would want to hold they probably would throw some investment at it

Johnson's government have done a pretty good job of convincing people that previous Tory governments were nothing to do with them.

Starmer needed an audio recording of the 'bodies' quote to back up his performance in PMQs. Otherwise it is a damp squib, though we all know he probably said it.

When you say excellent interview, do you mean the Today programme did an excellent job of skewering him by saying Labour opposed the lady who got all the vaccines and if it was down to them we'd still be in Europe and have a crap vaccine pipeline? Cos that's what I heard.

I wanted him to do well but that was really not great.

I think his response on those two were his weakest and on the taskforce at least he should've been stronger - the taskforce isn't just Bingham and opposing Bingham doesn't mean you oppose a taskforce-led rollout - but no, I didn't hear a skewering. They were two relatively familiar areas of attack, and the second one at least was fair criticism.

Really good piece in the Guardian today on why Starmer's 'sleaze' strategy might not work:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/may/04/labour-tories-voters-keir-starmer

Indeed. This line in particular resonates: "Labour does not endear itself to voters by treating the ballot paper as an exam and tutting when people give the wrong answer. A strategy based on telling voters to look again, look harder, because they missed the point last time is doomed..."

And this:

The left is conditioned to doubt that any decent human being could be a Tory. That is the barrier to empathy across which no minds are changed.

It's why I really liked the competency argument against Johnson - it doesn't penalise voters for voting for him, it doesn't say 'you idiots', it says 'you deserve better'. The vaccine rollout pretty much fucked that line of attack though.

An outsider's point of view if I can...

I wouldn't consider myself hugely 'political' and I don't have a natural affiliation to any particular party... but I have been enraged by the incompetence and corruption of the current mob. I fully expect any group of several hundred people to have some extra-marital affairs, a dodgy side hustle or 3, a handful of moral vacuums and a few morons, but the current government appear to have taken that argument to its logical conclusion.

What gets me, as an outsider, is that from my perspective Starmer hasn't, until the recent PMQ's, pushed that line anything like hard enough, presumably out of not wanting to be seen to be undermining rather than being constructive in a time of national crisis. As a result, he hasn't landed any really clear blows, and comes across as a bit wet and passive, in all honesty. As for what Labour stand for under him, I honestly couldn't tell you.

If he can address those 2 things, I think he will do well. In any case, he'll currently get my vote by default, but that's mainly because I'd rather cover a cucumber in a sandpaper condom and stick it up my arse using chilli oil as lube than do anything to support Johnson or Hancock.

You're right, it wasn't a skewering. But he could have been SO much stronger on those ones. Just very wishy washy. It was almost like the fire/passion had gone a bit. No way is that going to change anyone's mind.

The vaccine thing is so frustrating. I mean, it's great that thousands of people aren't going to die but the Tories are just going to use it to bash Labour over the head ad infinitum.